Michael Becker writes about journalism, new media and digital culture in general.

Life Recorders: The wristwatches of the future

Life Recorder devices are com­ing, says TechCrunch, whether we like it or not. These devices, such as the ones that Microsoft isdevel­op­ing, will have tiny cam­eras and audio recorders that record what is going on around you and auto­mat­i­cally upload it all into the cloud.

The Microsoft site says the cam­era could have sen­sors that would detect body heat or changes in ambi­ent light that could active the cam­era — or it could work on a timer. The audio recorder could have a sound sen­sor that would acti­vate only when the noise near the micro­phone is loud enough.

I can tell you this, if they could make one of those in a small enough pack­age — smaller even than the one in the photo on the MS site — I would wear it all the time, or at least when I’m work­ing. Can you say per­fect jour­nal­ism tool?